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PRUSSIAN MILITARISM 



CHARLES WILLIAM SUPER 



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GERMAN IDEALISM AND 
PRUSSIAN MILITARISM 



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German Idealism and 
Prussian Militarism 

By 
Charles William Super, Ph.D., LL.D. 

Ex-president of the Ohio University; some time professor of Greek and 

Dean of the College of Liberal Arts ibidem; Translator of "Wefl's 

Order of Words"; Author of a "History of the German Language"; 

"Between Heathenism and Christianity"; "Wisdom and Will in 

Education"; "A Liberal Education, with a list of five hundred 

best Books"; "Plutarch on Education"; "A Revaluation of 

Some Historical Values"; and numerous monographs on 

Educational, Historical, Ethical and Philosophical topics 

in German, American and British periodicals. 



"We kind o' thought Christ was agin war and 
pillage," — Lowell. 

"He was a man 
Who stole the livery of the court of heaven 
To serve the Devil in." 

— POLLOK. 



THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY 

440 Fourth Avenue, New York 
I 9 I 6 






Copyright, 1916, by 
The Neale Publishing Company 




*)CIA455218 



GERMAN IDEALISM AND 
PRUSSIAN MILITARISM 



PREFATORY NX)TE 

"Uncle Theodore was the exact type of one 
of those Germans of the old style whose affecta- 
tion it is scoffingly to repudiate the old idealism of 
the race, and, intoxicated by conquest, to maintain 
a cult of strength and success which shows that 
they are not accustomed to seeing them on their 
side. But as it is difficult at once to change the 
age-old nature of a people, the despised idealism 
sprang up again in him at every turn in language, 
manners, and moral habits and quotations from 
Goethe to fit the smallest incidents of domestic 
life, for he was a singular compound of conscience 
and self-interest. There was in him a curious 
effort to reconcile the honest principles of the 
German bourgeoisie with the cynicism of the new 
commercial condottieri — a compound which for- 
ever gave out a flavor of hypocrisy, forever striv- 
ing to make of German strength, avarice, and 
self-interest the symbols of right, justice and 
truth." 

7 



8 GERMAN IDEALISM AND 

The above quotation from Jean Christophe, 
written more than a decade ago, succinctly sets 
forth the change that has taken place in the 
German psyche, mainly during the reign of the 
present emperor. It is a transformation of which 
few Germans, even the most intelligent, are 
aware or conscious; hence many of their spokes- 
men try to persuade themselves and others that 
the old point of view has not been abandoned. 
And it is to be noted that the Germany of ro- 
mance, of music, of imaginative literature is 
mainly non-Prussian. There is thus an uncon- 
scious antagonism between the spirit of the old 
South and that of the new North. Modern Ger- 
man literature is hardly a century and a half old, 
and it has never been really domesticated in Prus- 
sian domains proper. It is scarcely probable that 
Frederic II seriously contemplated making Berlin 
the intellectual capital of Germany. With his 
undisguised contempt for the literature of the 
Fatherland he could not anticipate the epiphany 
of the great German thinkers and writers, some 
of whom were born during the later years of his 
reign. To him the German tongue was in itself 
a handicap to success in literature. The end he 
sought was the political predominance which he 
was successful in achieving. While writing the 



PRUSSIAN MILITARISM 9 

following pages I have tried to be impartial, but 
I have not tried to be neutral. I cherish a strong 
antipathy to autocratic government and an abiding 
faith in democracy, although I am fully cognizant 
of the strength of the former under certain con- 
ditions and of the weaknesses of the latter. I 
regard the doctrine of the divine right of kings 
as an anachronism, an absurdity, and as inter- 
preted by the present German emperor, a fright- 
ful obsession. There will be no abiding peace on 
earth so long as there remains a monarch who 
interprets right in terms of might and who is 
sufficiently powerful to impose his will upon his 
own subjects and upon other peoples. 

Charles W. Super. 
Athens, O., May 31st, 191 6. 



GERMAN IDEALISM AND PRUSSIAN 
MILITARISM 



A story used to be told, about half a century 
ago, of a German scholar who had elaborated 
with the utmost care and thoroughness a system 
of philosophy which he felt sure would supersede 
all others. One day when he was expounding his 
system to some interested friends one of them 
called his attention to certain points that were 
clearly at variance with well established facts. 
His answer was: "If your facts will not fit into 
my system, so much the worse for the facts." It 
is this peculiar perspicacity that enabled the Ger- 
man war party, when the present conflict broke 
out, to foretell a rebellion in Ireland* and in 



* Since this was written the Sinn Fein uprising occurred 
in DubHn and in other cities of Ireland. It seems to have 
been a rebellion in the same sense in which the anti-draft 
riots in New York and elsewhere in the North during the 
Civil War were such. 

10 



PRUSSIAN MILITARISM ii 

India, the secession of Canada and South Africa 
— in short, the British possessions all over the 
world were to obey a centrifugal impulse which 
would make them fly from the imperial capital 
like the drops from a revolving grindstone. We 
may note the same remarkable second sight in the 
state of mind which qualifies its possessor to dis- 
cern that Theodore Roosevelt is really pro-Ger- 
man, his violent anti-Teuton utterance notwith- 
standing. The vaticinations of these prophets 
were like those of Cassandra except in one par- 
ticular: hers were true but were fated to be 
unheeded, theirs were heeded but proved to be 
false. It is this intellectual acumen which enables 
those endowed with it to discover that the chauvin- 
ism of the Germans was prepared by their phil- 
osophers and imaginative writers more than a 
century ago. He who can discern in the works 
of Goethe, of Schiller, of Lessing and of others 
of their countrymen — if such a designation can 
be fittingly employed when we speak of men 
whose only bond was that of speech — the spirit 
that brought about German efficiency by means of 
a closely correlated system directed from above 
is endowed with an insight that is too wonderful 
for all men except the small number of elect. 
The ordinary reader can find in the writings of 



12 GERMAN IDEALISM AND 

none of the coryphei of Teutonic literature even 
an adumbration of the sentiment that is expressed 
in the motto Deutschland iiber Alles. 



II 



What is the testimony of the three great creators 
of imaginative German literature on this point? 
Lessing congratulated himself more than once that 
he was without a tinge of Vaterlandsliebe. A man 
of his tastes and discernment could see nothing 
in German literature or in German political con- 
ditions calculated to kindle the faintest spark of 
enthusiasm. So far as his ideals in literature 
were concerned he sought and found them in 
foreign lands except those that he had himself 
created. "Nathan the Sage," his most mature 
production, was written to prove that a man 
should not be judged by the land of his birth, 
nor by the religion he professes, but by his con- 
duct. In the choice of his theme he was no doubt 
largely influenced by the doctrinal bigotry which 
he saw among his countrymen, and indeed every- 
where. What meaning could a German of the 
eighteenth century attach to the term Vaterlands- 
liebe when he saw his country divided into a large 
number of states that were often at war with one 

13 



14 GERMAN IDEALISM AND 

another, or at least allies of hostile belligerents? 
So late as the Napoleonic wars the South German 
States were usually arrayed against those of the 
North, a condition of affairs that we find existing 
even in 1866. Was Goethe, who was born in the 
free city of Frankfort, to commend the same 
brand of patriotism with Schiller, who was a 
Wurtemberger, or with Lessing and Herder, who 
were natives of a distant part of the old empire? 
Patriotism had no influence upon the formation of 
political alliances. If it was to be founded on kin- 
ship of speech, how could we include Austria, and 
especially Switzerland, notwithstanding Arndt's 
comprehensive answer to the question, IVas ist des 
Deutschen Vaterland? It requires extraordinary 
perspicacity to see what does not exist and what 
nobody can discern unless he has made up his mind 
in advance to discover what he is looking for to 
find in Goethe's writings what is usually called pa- 
triotism, or anything approaching it. He was 
sixty-five years old when the battle of Waterloo 
was fought, one result of which was a political re- 
action all over Europe, but particularly in Ger- 
many. Y^t he could say, according to a reported 
conversation with Soret: "National hatred is quite 
a peculiar thing. You will find that it is strongest 
and fiercest in the lowest culture. But there is also 



PRUSSIAN MILITARISM 15 

a stage where it entirely disappears, where one 
stands to some extent above the nations and sym- 
pathizes with the weal or woe of a neighboring 
people as with that of one's own. The latter stage 
of culture suited my nature and I had confirmed 
myself in it long before attaining my sixtieth year." 
Many years before this date he had reached the 
pinnacle of his fame and could say what 
he pleased without runing the risk which 
a man of less note would have incurred. 
The political condition of Europe had little 
interest for him. He was willing that the 
course of events should be directed by such men as 
Metternich and those who stood with him to carry 
out his policy of reaction. In Italy the Carbonari 
were active, devising plans to secure larger politi- 
cal rights for their countrymen. In Germany das 
junge Deutschland was making diligent propa- 
ganda, more or less political, although the latter 
phase of its activities was kept in the background. 
Goethe had taken part, in a way, in the campaign 
into France and had an intimate knowledge of the 
atrocious proclamation of the Duke of Brunswick 
to the French people. But the thoughts that were 
uppermost in the minds of most people elicited no 
comment or opinion from him except in the most 
cold-hearted way. Like all men of superior minds, 



1 6 GERMAN IDEALISM AND 

he endeavored envisage the situation from an ob- 
jective standpoint. He was unceasingly occupied 
with the study of problems that promoted his self- 
development. To this end he was willing to sacri- 
fice everything and everybody. While not inten- 
tionally cruel or purposely heartless, or callously 
indifferent to human suffering, his first thought 
was always of himself. Perhaps his "Egmont" 
may be considered a protest against religious and 
political intolerance ; but he did not return to the 
theme again, as did Schiller over and over. He 
was almost wholly indifferent to religion and saw 
no cause for martyrdom for the sake of a creed 
since men would outgrow their intolerance in the 
natural course of development. 



Ill 



In 1896 Herr Siegfried published a Goethe- 
Brevier, for which he collected 845 apothegms 
from the works of this Superman. I have not 
been able to find a single one that has any bearing 
on the political events or conditions of his time. 
He has much to say about Life, about Art and 
Artists, about God and Religion; on the troublous 
affairs of Europe, and especially of Germany, not a 
word. In "JVahrheit iind Dichtung^' he avers that 
a good work of art may have moral results, but to 
ask the artist to aim at moral ends is to spoil his 
occupation. To Schiller he wrote that the artist 
must himself be the best judge whether or not he 
ought to accept the suggestion of others. He finds 
nothing more stupid than to say to a poet: You 
should have done thus and so in this case and in 
another differently, because you cannot make a 
poet anything different from what nature intended 
him to be. If you force a poet to be something 
else, you destroy him. He holds that all content- 
ment lies in ourselves. We are our own devil ; we 

17 



i8 GERMAN IDEALISM AND 

expel ourselves from our paradise. Goethe's con- 
temporaries found much fault with him for his 
languid interest in the affairs of his country, and it 
was with reference to these criticisms that he ut- 
tered the sentiments to Soret quoted above. I have 
found no evidence that Goethe share his friend 
Schiller's faith in the efficacy of the drama as a 
moral agency. He seems to have been of a dif- 
ferent opinion. As the chief aim of poetry is ar- 
tistic, its moral teachings will always be indirect. 
The Utopia sketched in the '^JVanderjahre" is to 
have no theaters and no taverns. There is to be 
no standing army, but military drill is to be made 
an important part of education, because the citi- 
zens are to be qualified to fight in self-defense. 
Education is to be moral, industrial, mental and 
religious; but to Goethe religion is synonymous 
with reverence, a term that occurs often in his 
writings. Neither bells nor drums are to be tol- 
erated. Workingmen are to be summoned to 
their labor by the sound of wind instruments. The 
dogma taught and put in practice by Frederic the 
Great that whatever is conducive to the welfare of 
the state is right would assuredly have not been en- 
dorsed by him. It is so glaringly absurd that one 
must wonder how any man of average common 
sense can be misled by it. The solution of eco- 



PRUSSIAN MILITARISM 19 

omic problems Is to be wrought out by the same 
of his own life, by work. In a slight degree he 
anticipated the industrial state as organized by the 
Prussian government in the nineteenth century, 
although similar ideas are found In Plato and in 
other writers. The Importance of work, either 
mental or physical, or both combined, is also em- 
phasized in the closing parts of Faust. 



IV 



To call Goethe the Great Heathen is hardly just, 
unless we understand by this designation that he 
was not a positive Christian. Here, too, he was at 
variance with the Prussian state, or at least with 
the German emperor, who has frequently declared 
in his speeches that a man cannot be a good soldier 
unless he is also a good Christian. To Goethe the 
cultivation of art and of artistic appreciation was 
worship. This idea may have come to him inde- 
pendently, but it was strengthened by his visit tq 
Italy, the country in which painting and sculpture 
and architecture, as in ancient Athens, are the ex- 
pression of religious emotion. These objects may 
indeed promote the interests of religion, but they 
are no support to good morals, except in the case 
of individuals who are by nature disposed to yield 
to the restraints imposed upon them by ethical 
teachings. In later years Goethe's views seem to 
have undergone considerable change in this re- 
spect. He began to discover that what may fan 
a flame will not kindle a fire. Goethe's faith in 

20 



PRUSSIAN MILITARISM 21 

the potency of orderly development was strikingly 
exhibited In the tenacity with which he held to the 
Neptunian theory In geology. The doctrine of 
upheavals was a great annoyance to him. He 
cursed the "execrable racket and lumber-room of 
the new order of creation." He permitted his 
esthetic Instincts to mold his scientific opinions to 
such an extent that he felt the bitterest hostility to 
views based on carefully conducted observations 
and researches. Even the great name of von Hum- 
boldt was not sufficient to induce him to change his 
attitude or even to use greater moderation in de- 
fending it. His opinion of Luther was of two 
kinds. He felt a certain gratification at the re- 
sults of his activities and was proud of what he 
had accomplished for religious liberty, but he con- 
demned his violent methods. If he had lived in 
the days of the Great Reformer, he would have 
been an Erasmlan, not a Lutheran. In one of the 
Xenian we read: 

^'Franztum drdngt, in diesen verworrenen Tagen 
wie ehemals 
Luthertum es getan, ruhige Bildung zuriick." 



He was hostile to the Romanticists, for he re- 
garded their preachments as a return to medieeval 
obscurantism. He was thoroughly disgusted with 
Schlegel for his entry into the Roman Catholic 
church. It was, perhaps, with this act in mind that 
he expressed himself more vigorously than was his 
wont or than at any other time of his life, as an 
adherent of Protestantism (1817). Identifying 
himself with his co-religionists, he declared that 
"We cannot accord to our Luther higher honor 
than by openly, earnestly and vigorously express- 
ing and repeating what he considered right and 
advantageous to our nation and our age." It is 
hard to discover in Goethe the model citizen or an 
exemplar for posterity when we recall what his re- 
lations with women usually were, and the fact that 
his domestic establishment was founded on the 
mere gratification of sensual desire, in which there 
was to be found hardly a tinge of the higher sen- 
timents. His household was presided over by a 
woman who was in almost every respect her hus- 

22 



PRUSSIAN MILITARISM 23 

band's inferior and whom he made his wife solely 
for the purpose of legitimizing children born out 
of wedlock. Doubtless this, too, was one of the 
venial peccadilloes of the Superman. 

Early in life Schiller expressed himself as fol- 
lows: "I write now as a citizen of the world; as 
one who is subject to no prince, to no king. To 
care for mankind, the people. Is my sole study; in 
the public I recognize my true sovereign, my true 
bosom friend. To this tribunal, and to no other, 
I am responsible. 'There Is something magnificent 
in the thought that I am subject now to no restric- 
tions save those Inspired by public opinion. To no 
Caesar do I appeal, but to the universal soul of 
mankind. A citizen of the universe, in every man 
I see a member of a family — my own. Whatever 
may be the outward show of rank, office or posi- 
tion, I look through all these articles of dress and 
decoration and see only my fellow-citizen." It 
was such utterances that led to the bestowal of the 
title "citoyen fran^als" upon him by the National 
Convention. Yet so imperfectly was he known in 
Paris that his name was understood to be Gilles. 
He had little taste and less natural aptitude for the 
work of the conscientious historian. He lacked 
the necessary patience for poring over old books 
and manuscripts, a defect of which he was fully 



24 GERMAN IDEALISM AND 

conscious. He once wrote to a friend that history 
was a sort of storehouse for his imagination, the 
contents of which had to submit to whatever use 
he wished to make of them, and that he would al- 
ways be a poor authority for any future writer 
who should be so unfortunate as to trust his guid- 
ance. But he consoled himself with the reflection 
that he might be able to implant in the minds of 
his hearers his own passionate love of liberty. 
"Already I have read with enthusiasm the story of 
the Revolt of the Netherlands, and I find there 
represented my own ideas of freedom. It will be 
my endeavor to spread among my students some- 
thing like my own enthusiasm. History must 
serve as the canvas on which my own ideas are 
depicted." This prlncilpe, if followed, would 
vitiate all historical writing. In the annals of some 
nations it would be wholly out of place, because it 
did not enter into the minds of the chief actors. 
To write a history on such a plan would gener- 
ally be to lead the reader astray. In the later years 
of the eighteenth century, Schiller began to look 
to Berlin as the source whence the light of re- 
ligious liberty would shine forth, chiefly because 
it was the most Protestant capital of his country. 
In 1804 he wrote to Zelter: "In the dark time of 
superstition, Berlin first kindled the torch of na- 



PRUSSIAN MILITARISM 25 

tional political liberty." While this averment was 
true of some of the earlier periods, and particu- 
larly of the era of Frederick the Great, the torch 
did not at all times burn brightly and with a steady 
light. Schiller's dictum shows in a striking manner 
how differently "religious librety" was interpreted 
in Germany, in England, and later in the Uniter* 
States and France. It is interesting to compare 
Schiller's conception of the poet's mission with that 
of Wordsworth, who also believed that "every 
great poet is a teacher. I wish, to be considered 
as a teacher or as nothing." 1 he Briton, how- 
ever, always looked upon nature in her benevolent 
aspects. He seems never to have realized that she 
"is red in tooth and claw." This stern fact Goethe 
had in mind when he wrote : "Let man be noble, 
helpful and kind, for that alone distinguishes him 
from all beings that we know." Nature, as he 
clearly saw, has no feeling. Human nature is, 
therefore, something higher and nobler only when 
humanity makes it so with a conscious purpose. 
Schiller appears never to have clearly appre- 
hended that nature in its widest aspect is Inexor- 
able as death and that it is often impossible to 
change the order of events. 



VI 



Because a considerable number of Germans still 
have faith in the potency of the drama as a moral 
agency, it may not be amiss to examine briefly the 
solidity of the foundation upon which this belief 
rests. It is not held in any other country of the 
world. In the United States, as in England, 
Shakespeare is studied private a great deal. But 
no American or Britisher would advise his friends 
to attend the theater for the purpose of hearing 
lessons on ethics. He would be more likely to 
advise him to remain away for this reason. But 
so firmly is the belief in the ethical value of the 
drama intrenched in the German mind that the 
students at the Universities are permitted to at- 
tend public performances for a merely nominal 
fee. This is rendered possible because all the 
theaters are subsidized by the government. How 
much effect this has on the public conscience is 
demonstrated by the fact that nowhere is the doc- 
trine that might makes right so assiduously and 
unblushingly preached as by Germans, a doctrine 

26 



PRUSSIAN MILITARISM 27 

that is not only a mischievous, but a frightful, fal- 
lacy. No dramatic author is so minutely scruti- 
nized in Germany as Shakespeare. Yet few of his 
plays, if any, were composed with a didactic pur- 
pose. Hamlet is perhaps the most popular, and 
Hamlet is a psychological study, pure and ^ 
simple. On the other hand, the theater is not pop- 
ular in England in the sense that it is in Germany. 
The English novel was written mainly for a didac- 
tice purpose, when it first began to appeal to the 
public. This tendency is plainly evident in Rich- 
ardson, and even in Defoe. For while "Robinson 
Crusoe" seems to have been composed for the 
sake of the story solely, it is permeated from be- 
ginning to end with pious reflections and with 
arguments to prove the superiority of the Chris- 
tian to all other religions. Both these books had 
an extraordinary vogue in Germany. The didac- 
tic novel received a great impulse through Sir 
Walter Scott, whose imaginative creations had a ^V 
strong influe nce on Goethe as his Gotz von Ber- ( ,f 
lichingen testifies! The opposition was repre- ^ 
sented by Fielding; In poetry by Shelley and 
Byron. In the writings of neither is there the 
slightest evidence of a desire to teach, although 
it is not by their dramas that they are best known, 
at least as dramas. In this country Poe stood 



28 GERMAN IDEALISM AND 

almost alone for a long time in opposing the doc- 
trine that it is the province of the poet to teach. 
To this attitude is largely due his popularity in 
France, given, of course, his extraordinary native 
merit. His essay on The Poetic Principle is a 
clear and eloquent defense of the right of poetry 
to exist for itself and on its own merits. He says: 
"I would define, in brief, the poetry of words as 
the rhythmical creation of beauty. Its sole arbi- 
ter is taste. With the intellect or with the con- 
science, it has only collateral relations. Unless, 
incidentally, it has no concern either with duty or 
with truth." Poe explains, however, in exact 
agreement with Goethe — he seems to have had a 
very superficial acquaintance with German litera- 
ture — and with Ruskin, that it by no means fol- 
lows "that the incitements of passion, or the prin- 
ciples of duty, or even the lessons of truth, may 
not be introduced into a poem, and with advan- 
tage." But these things must be incidental to the 
main purpose of the work. 



VII 



The doctrine that national unity can be brought 
about by force alone is based on many historical 
precedents. Switzerland and the United States 
are not, strictly speaking, an exception. It was the 
misfortune of the ancient Greeks that none of 
their states was strong enough to bring under its 
sway the numerous petty commonwealths by force, 
nor sagacious enough to achieve the same end by 
diplomacy. The Roman empire was the creation 
of force ; but its government was of such beneficent 
character that many of its citizens whose ances- 
tors had been subjugated by the sword were proud 
of this appellation. In Spain and France almost 
simultaneously the obstreperous nobility were con- 
strained to submit to a central authority. A 
somewhat similar centrifugal agency operated in 
Great Britain until 1745, when Scotland Avas 
finally subdued. In Ireland, on the other hand, a 
large portion of the people have steadily refused to 
be reconciled to British rule because her overlords 
would not make due allowance for the national 

29 



30 GERMAN IDEALISM AND 

spirit. The German historians saw this more 
clearly than the imaginative writers, and it is they 
who persistently preached the doctrine that Ger- 
man unity must come under Prussian leadership. 
As early as 1848 Gustav Freytag expressed this 
Prussian lust for dominion when he wrote: "If 
in order to bring about (German) unity we must 
march against Germans (which God forbid) 
Prussia will march, and perhaps that is what dis- 
tinguishes us Prussians from other Germans; for 
we are ready to shed our last drop of blood to 
have our way. What should we fear? Are we 
not a nation of warriors?" After ^66 the Prus- 
sian students who sojourned at the South German 
universities began to treat their confreres with a 
greater degree of condescension, although it had 
previously been somewhat in evidence. While 
willing to admit that the Swabians were their 
superiors in poetry they looked upon them some- 
what askance as dreamers and heavy-wits, as af- 
flicted with an ineradicable gauchcrie. More than 
once when I used Swabian words and forms of ex- 
pression I was told that "we do not use that 
word," or "we do not call it by that name." Piatt 
Deutsch was regarded as a speech that had its 
merits and had to its credit some notable names 
in contemporary literature; but what could be 



PRUSSIAN MILITARISM 31 

said of the Swabian? Little except that it had a 
not discreditable past, and an interesting histori- 
cal development. It was regarded as a most 
serious mistake of Luther that he did not come 
into the world farther north. Following a cus- 
tom of long standing, many Prussian students 
spent at least one semester, by preference that fall- 
ing in the summer, at Heidelberg, or Freiburg, or 
Tubingen, not because they could learn anything 
better than at home, but because of the agreeable 
location of these seats of learning. The complaint 
has recently been made that the Prussian officers 
are Avont to assign the most difficult and dangerous 
military enterprises to the South German troops 
in order to spare their own. The credit for vic- 
tory or for the display of exceptional bravery 
would none the less accrue to those in command; 
for is not Prussia conducting this war on behalf 
of all Germany? What could the smaller states 
accomplish of themselves? They would simply 
be crushed by the first onslaught of a foreign foe. 
Admitting that the South Germans, particularly 
the Austrians, are more gemiithlich than their 
northern brethren, what is the good of Gemiith- 
lichkeit in the strenuous affairs of practical life? 
In the intense international and domestic struggle 



32 GERMAN IDEALISM AND 

for the primacy it belongs to those who are 
always keyed up and ready to act. 

It was doubtless with a view to conciliating th^ 
Wurtembergers that the kaiser called Count Zep- 
pelin "the greatest German of the twentieth cen- 
tury" after he had conferred upon him the Order 
of the Black Eagle. It is characteristic of the 
German emperor's idea of greatness that its acme 
was reached by a man whose only title to distinc- 
tion lies in an invention that can be used solely 
for purposes of destruction and for spreading de- 
vastation, indiscriminate and unpitying. It is sig- 
nificant of the South German state of mind that 
the Bavarian crown-prince in one of his speeches 
objected to the assumption that the affiliated sov- 
ereigns are vassals of the Emperor. On another 
occasion the same man declared that he did not 
wish to be regarded as a minor brother, but as a 
brother with full rights and powers. The em- 
peror has visited Munich, Stuttgart and Leipzig 
less often than foreign capitals. It has been sug- 
gested that the reigning sovereigns in these two 
capitals and in Dresden were averse to seeing at 
their side a greater than themselves. But it may 
also be due to the conviction on the part of the 
emperor that in these cities his reception would 
be less cordial than among his Brandenburgers, 



PRUSSIAN MILITARISM 33 

where there was no one to share his royal honors. 
Aside from his monomania about the Great Ally, 
about the Divine Right of kings and the eminent 
services of the Hohenzollerns, he exhibits a great 
deal of shrewdness. 



VIII 

For at least a century there has been a fairly 
uniform development in British and American 
thought and commerce, in politics and economics. 
The German empire, on the other hand, is, almost 
as much as Japan, a new creation. It is no longer 
the land of Philosophers, of fairy tales, of poets 
and solitary thinkers. Whether for better or for 
worse, the transformation has been wonderful. 
Until recently the Germans were wont to stigma- 
tize the British as traffickers and hucksters. Then 
they themselves entered the field of practical affairs 
and are now boasting of their efficiency and superi- 
ority. And, in truth, they have outstripped the 
British, and not the British alone, but all the 
rest of the world. They have demonstrated their 
superiority in every domain of commerce and 
manufactures, and are inordinately proud of their 
achievements. They have creased to acquiesce in 
French predominance on land and English predom- 
inance on the sea, retaining for themselves only the 
hegemony of the air. They want to be first in all 
three. The outside world has no cause for finding 

34 



PRUSSIAN MILITARISM 35 

fault with them on this account. But it is diverting 
to meet Germans who seem honestly to believe that 
this thoroughly materialized Germany is founded 
on the German idealism of a century ago and is a 
natural development therefrom. As Prussia took 
the lead in arousing the national consciousness at 
the beginning of the nineteenth century, she is 
in no mood to surrender the primacy to any other 
part of the Fatherland. As this preponderance 
was not brought about by peaceful methods, the 
Prussians insist that it cannot be maintained by 
peaceful means, although they have been pro- 
claiming long and loud that preparedness for war 
is the best guarantee of peace. It has proved just 
as true as was the dictum of Napoleon III, I'em- 
pire, c'est la paix. This position is falsified by 
the whole course of human affairs. It is hardly 
probable that Bismarck shared the fallacy when 
he forced upon Prussia budget after budget early 
in the sixties, in spite of the adverse votes of the 
Reichstag. Amid the avalanche of official corre- 
spondence that has almost overwhelmed the world 
since the outbreak of the present war it is im- 
possible to decide to what extent Russia shares the 
responsibility. But one fact is fairly well estab- 
lished: it does not rest mainly on either the Mus- 
covite or the British empire. 



IX 



Schiller was as ardent a champion of personal 
liberty as Goethe and a much more enthusiastic de- 
v^otee of political liberty. Perhaps if the latter had 
been abliged to pass his most impressible years un- 
der military constraint, as was the case with Schil- 
ler, he would have expressed his dissatisfaction 
with equal vigor if not with equal violence. As we 
have only the testimony of Schiller himself, it may 
be doubted that the strict military discipline by 
which the Carlsschule was governed was harsher 
than that of similar institutions elsewhere. At 
any rate, the Germans of the twentieth century 
have introduced quasi-military discipline into 
every walk of life and defend its ruthless appli- 
cation. The Robbers were, however, a protest 
against convention of all kinds in the Great So- 
ciety rather than against the restraints by which 
the author believed himself handicapped. 

Schiller's mind sometimes dwelt with intense 
longing on ancient Greece, the land in which the 
highest homage Is paid to beauty. To him as to 

36 



PRUSSIAN MILITARISM 37 

Goethe, the artist, not the strong man, approaches 
nearest to the divine. He is the favorite of the 
gods, partakes of the divine nature and reveals it 
in visible symbols, either to the eye or to the ear. 
In this regard both poets were completely at 
variance with Protestantism. Schiller's faith 
in the drama as a teacher of morals is not 
founded on experience ; it is contradicted by his- 
tory. It Is going back to the age of Mysteries and 
Miracle Plays when few persons could read. Be- 
sides, this method of Instruction Is unpractical. 
Only a small portion of the people in even the 
most thickly settled parts of the country could be 
reached in this way. The idea leaves out of ac- 
count the rural population and the dwellers in the 
towns and small cities. The ancient Greek tragedy 
was written for the elect, not for the man whose 
life was spent in toil. If moral instruction is to 
come through the reading of the written page, as 
Plutarch recommends, it can be given in a less 
diluted form. I have found no evidence that 
Goethe shared his friend's faith In the moral 
potency of the drama. He seems at times to have 
had doubts about the value of any systematic in- 
struction in morals. Nordau, in his "Philosophy 
of History," quotes him as saying that "men be- 
come cleverer and more intelligent, but not better 



38 GERMAN IDEALISM AND 

or happier, or more effective in action." To a 
man who entertains such views, ideals have little 
significance. His opinions on the functions of art 
are concisely expressed in the words of Ruskin, 
who declares, when writing of the works of 
Homer: "They were not didactically conceived, 
but they are didactic in their essence, as all good 
art is." These are almost the words of Goethe 
as given on a previous page. Plutarch endeavors 
to extract ethical lessons from lyric, tragic and 
epic poetry; but he finds it necessary to select such 
passages as lend support to his preconceived doc- 
trines and to reject those that are at variance 
therewith. This method may be effective with the 
boy or the man who is by nature morally inclined 
as were Plutarch and the noble Swabian; but In 
Greek tragedy vice prospers as often as virtue, 
while the gods are both vindictive and merciless. 
The ancient Greeks were enthusiastic admirers of 
their tragic poets. The words of Homer were 
constantly on their lips. But their statesmen were 
far readier to quote passages that supported their 
evil propensities than their better nature. The 
reputation of the Greeks for veracity, for rational 
patriotism, for humaneness in dealing with ene- 
mies, for integrity was always very bad. 



X 



Although Schiller was a more pronounced indi- 
vidualist, in some respects, than Goethe, he was 
less selfish. He knew the lowly better and sym- 
pathized with them. Often, however, we find the 
two men in complete accord. In "Wilhelm Tell" 
we read such sentiments as : "Die schnellen Herr- 
scher sind's die kurz regieren (The impetuous 
rulers are those whose rule is brief) . "Die einz'ge 
Tat ist jetzt Geduld und Schweigen" (The only 
deed is patience now and silence). Such senti- 
ments are a protest against the activities of those 
reformers who would make over the world in a 
day. Again : "Ein jeder zdhlt nur sicher auf sich 
selbst" (A man counts safely on himself alone). 
"Der Starke ist am mdchtigsten allein" (The 
strong man is most potent when alone). There 
is here no sympathy with collectivism. "Das 
Hans der Freiheit hat uns Gott gegrilndet" (The 
house of freedom God has founded for us). 
"Dann erst geniesz' ich meines Lebens recht Wann 
ich's musz jeden Tag auf's neu' erwerhen" (Then 

39 



40 GERMAN IDEALISM AND 

only do I get full enjoyment of my life, when I 
have to win it each day anew). This sentiment is 
echoed in the second part of Faust: "Niir der 
verdient sich Freiheit wie das Leben, Der tdglich 
sie erwerhen musz" (He alone is worthy of free- 
dom and of life who must earn them every day). 
The closing scene of Tell is somewhat tame, but 
it is a noble tribute to the spirit of liberty: Ber- 
tha, the free Swiss woman, gives her hand and 
heart to the free Swiss man, and he declares all 
his bondsmen free. Albeit, the hero positively 
refuses to co-operate with the conspirators except 
in his own way and at his own time. Yet he 
does not court danger. He exhibits no bravado. 
He attributes his failure to do obeisance to the 
hat to his innate stupidity and promises that he 
will never be guilty in the same way. Tell's can- 
dor, his guilelessness, his habit of speaking his 
whole mind, caused him to be regarded as some- 
what lacking in common sense, as something of a 
simpleton and dullard. He intimates that his 
name is an epithet popularly applied to him indi- 
vidually and not that of his ancestors. Further- 
more, it may be stated in this connection that the 
judgment Tell passes upon himself corresponds 
pretty closely with the opinion widely held by 
foreigners regarding the Germans in general. 



PRUSSIAN MILITARISM 41 

Although the dying Stauffacher exhorts his 
friends to be One, to be equal participants in the 
effort and determination to throw off the yoke of 
Austria, the work was to be accomplished by mu- 
tual co-operation and reciprocal aid. It was in 
this way that the Swiss confederation was formed; 
In this way it continued to grow until it attained 
its present status. There is in the example of the 
Swiss cantons or states no historical precedent for 
the formation of the German empire bound to- 
gether with iron bands and cemented with blood. 
The Austrians, moreover, find little in Schiller's 
dramas to gratify their national pride. Both as 
the head of a household and as an idealist Schiller 
is far more worthy of admiration than his greater 
contemporary. Notwithstanding his struggle with 
poverty almost all his life and with ill health in 
his later years, no pessimism appears in his writ- 
ings. It is not an improbable supposition that 
his optimistic view of the larger world was a good 
deal influenced by his almost ideal domestic rela- 
tions.* • 

*About twenty years ago one of the leading booksellers of 
Leipzig told me that the Schiller cult was rapidly waning. 
The centennial year of his death produced a slight revival, 
but the effect was not permanent. In truth his works con- 
tain very little pabulum for the nourishment of ultra chauvin- 
ists. There is nothing in the history of the Thirty Years War 
to arouse German pride, and still less in the history of the 
Revolt of the Netherlands to awaken German national sym- 



42 GERMAN IDEALISM AND 



pathy. A German who is persecuted for his religion may 
emigrate, but he will hardly fight. Schiller found the materials 
for his tragedies in Italy, in Switzerland and in France, in 
England for two, in Austria, but none in his own countrj'. 
Even in his lyrical poems he is rather a citizen of the world 
than of Germany. 



XI 



It is Instructive to compare, for a moment, the 
career of Goethe with that of a man who was his 
contemporary for a third of his life, with Vol- 
taire, the greatest literary character produced by 
France. The German always thought of himself 
first; the Frenchman devoted a good deal of 
thought to others, and, It may be added, very 
serious thought. Wherever he saw malice, stu- 
pidity and bigotry in high places he girded at 
them with the keen lance of his pen, although 
he did not always stop with that. Voltaire's 
"infame," a term that he employed so often In 
the watchword ''ecrasez I'infame," was not 
Christianity, nor even the Catholic church: It was 
'^persecuting and privileged orthodoxy." Vol- 
taire was no more a leveller than was Goethe. He 
did not believe that all men are created equal. But 
he was the bitter and uncompromising foe of insti- 
tutions and laws that made merit to consist solely 
in birth, ancestry, and in social position. To him 
it mattered not so much that the wronged were his 

43 



44 GERMAN IDEALISM AND 

countrymen as that they were men. Voltaire's out- 
look was far wider than Goethe's. And while the 
methods he employed in enriching himself were 
often of questionable morality, they were no worse 
than those current in his day. Moreover, he dis- 
pensed his wealth with a lavish hand. It is believed 
that his domestic establishment at Ferney consisted 
of more than half a hundred persons, few of whom 
had any claim upon his generosity except the claim 
of sympathy. Goethe moralized a great deal, but 
he rarely acted; Voltaire always acted when action 
alone promised to bring the results he sought. 
These lines are not written to condemn Goethe or 
to commend Voltaire, but simply to point out a 
few differences in the mentality of two men who 
dominated the thought of Europe for more than 
a century, a mentality that is characteristic of the 
two nations to which they belonged. Their atti- 
tude toward their political environment is equally 
characteristic. 



XII 



Both Goethe and Schiller during most of 
their lives took a languid interest in contem- 
porary politics. Both evidently reached the con- 
viction during their early years that the politi- 
cal, like the economic conditions of a people, im- 
prove with their progress in enlightenment; and 
enlightenment is not the equivalent of education. 
This belief was also shared with the philosophers, 
most of whom dwelt in an empyrean of their own 
construction. Goethe passed the last forty years 
of his life without any regular employment except 
such as he found congenial to his tastes. Instead 
of choosing the Prussian capital, with its turmoil 
and bustle and political intrigues, as a place of resi- 
dence, he remained in the little city on the Ilm. 
He had some illustrious prototypes for his aloof- 
ness from politics. Socrates was a witness of the 
departure of the Sicilian expedition, freighted not 
only with men, but with high hopes and brilliant 
expectations. He knew at first hand the frightful 
calamity that overwhelmed it. When the disaster 

45 



46 GERMAN IDEALISM AND 

at Aegospotamos engulfed their country Socrates 
was still living and his most illustrious pupil was 
twenty years of age. Yet no mention is made of 
either event in the Dialogues of Plato. I have 
not found in Goethe's writings his opinion of 
Frederic the Great. In IFahrheit mid Dichtiing 
he relates that his family was divided between 
sympathy for Austria and for Prussia, some tak- 
ing the side of one, some of the other. The merits 
of the case did not determine the decision; it was 
self-interest real or imaginary and irrational sym- 
pathy. In another place he discusses the super- 
man whom he calls daimonic, where he may have 
the Prussian monarch in mind. Such men, he de- 
clares, are not necessarily superior in talents or 
in spirit, rarely in goodness of heart. They are 
admired because they are strong and do things. 
It is their power, not their character, that im- 
presses the multitude. They cannot be check- 
mated except by other men equally prepollent. He 
quotes the proverb : "Nemo contra deiim nisi dens 
ipse." It must be said to Goethe's credit that he 
did not always profess to have been consistent in 
his opinions. He was well aware that it evinces a 
little mind if a man at sixty holds the same opin- 
ions that he held at thirty. He who would know 
what Goethe thought on every subject during the 



PRUSSIAN MILITARISM 47 

course of his long life will have to devote two or 
three years almost exclusively to reading his vol- 
uminous works and his enormous correspondence. 
In this laborious task he will come across many 
platitudes — sayings that are deemed important 
merely because they were uttered by a wise man. 
It is hardly possible that he approved Frederic's 
infamous proposal to Maria Theresa when he was 
about to undertake the war against Austria. It 
amounted virtually to this: Your house has been 
in unquestioned possession of certain territory for 
more than a century. Now I want part of it. If 
you will give me the portion to which I lay claim, 
I will defend, or help to defend, your title to the 
rest against all future comers. When this out- 
rageous proposal was indignantly rejected Fred- 
eric proceeded to take possession by force .of 
arms, the Pragmatic Sanction notwithstanding. 
His action was even less excusable than the recent 
invasion of Belgium, by order of the emperor, and 
he knew it, for he hardly attempted to justify his 
action. There was no Pragmatic Sanction in the 
way, and the German emperor of the twentieth 
century might allege that he was not bound by a 
treaty made by Prussia alone. I doubt whether 
modern history contains a more infamous proposal 
or a more shameful way of enforcing a shadowy 



48 GERMAN IDEALISM AND 

claim or one based on so slender a foundation of 
equity. In fact, Frederic's entire statesmanship 
was shaped by the maxim that might makes right 
and that whatever the supreme authority believes 
to be conducive to the interest of the state is to be 
its rule of conduct without regard to what the 
rest of the world thinks. A people who makes 
such a man a national hero can maintain their 
supremacy only by being constantly armed to the 
teeth. It is almost inevitable that a day will come 
when a coalition will be formed against a monar- 
chy dominated by such principles, stronger than it, 
and which will treat it as it treated others. With 
such a government no binding compact can be 
made because it will always be able to find an 
excuse for quibbling when it feels strong enough 
to make good a claim whether real or imaginary 
by superior force. If we are permitted to judge 
a people by the character of the gods they revere 
we are compelled to place a low estimate on that 
of the reigning German emperor and his entour- 
age from the point of view of humanity. But I 
do not think the emperor should be held respon- 
sible for his overwrought Idea of himself and of 
his intimate relations with the God of the Chris- 
tians. He is either a monomaniac or a paranoiac. 
His exaggerated idea of the services which the 



PRUSSIAN MILITARISM 49 

Hohenzollerns rendered to the cause of Germany 
and to civilization would be laughable if they were 
not so tragic. Posterity will hold him responsible 
for his acts, but hardly for his opinions any more 
than it does Louis XIV for his dictum: "The 
state ! I am the state." * 



*Charles Tower, in his recent book, "Changing Germany," 
expresses the opinion that the kaiser really believes in his 
divine calling. He is not only a mystic, but a supernaturalist, 
a curious mixture of pagan and Christian. By a strange incon- 
sistency, he is also intensely superstitious, though perhaps 
without intending to be so, or without being fully conscious 
of it. The crown prince, on the other hand, is frankly pagan. 
It may be that he has a half mystic, half politic conception 
of his mission as a great unifying force. He holds out with- 
out discrimination his hands full of gifts to Catholics, to 
Protestants, to Evangelicals, to Moslems. He imagines him- 
self as standing above and apart from the strife of creeds, 
anointed with the oil of priestly kingship, gifted with the an- 
cient power of interpretation and with the privilege of Urim 
and Thummim," "a descendant of Aaron and the wearer of the 
purple of all the prophets that had preceded him. He dwells 
in a rarer atmosphere which lesser men cannot breathe, ac- 
counts himself the interpreter of the divine will, and feels it 
no blasphemy to exclaim, 'When the Unknown God seems to 
crown the standards of Imperial Germany with victory.' How 
wonderfully God has wrought for Wilhelm ! " 



XIII 

In "Herrmann und Dorothea" Goethe tells us 
that in those days of stress and anxiety all the 
nations were looking toward the capital of the 
world, thus recognizing a primacy that Paris had 
long held and which now more than ever deserved 
the glorious appellation. He thought in common 
with many millions that the first rays of the sun 
of enlightenment which portended a new day were 
becoming visible above the horizon. But his high 
hopes were seriously disappointed when he beheld 
the brutal masses gradually gaining the ascend- 
ency and beginning to uproot and to overturn the 
structure of society that had stood so long, and 
to direct into new and untried channels the cur- 
rent of events. He saw that what at first prom- 
ised to be an evolution was degenerating into a 
revolution of the most sanguinary type. What 
he learned in those days served to confirm his 
faith in orderly development, a faith that James 
Russell Lowell has finely expressed in "Hebe": 

50 



PRUSSIAN MILITARISM 51 

"O spendthrift Haste! await the gods: 
Their nectar crowns the Hps of patience; 
Haste scatters on unthankful sods 
The immortal gift in vain libations." 

It is interesting to note that among the reasons 
which influenced Goethe to choose Strassburg as 
the city in which to complete his legal studies was 
the fact that it was more French than German. 
He even thought of attaching himself to its uni- 
versity with a view to a life career. French had 
become so familiar to him that it was really one 
of his two vernaculars. He was for a time in the 
same dilemma with Edward Gibbon, who was for 
a while in doubt whether to compose his forth- 
coming "Decline and Fall" in French or in Eng- 
lish. These two cases are striking testimony 
to the preponderance of French in the eigh- 
teenth century and go not a little way to justi- 
fying Frederic's preference for that tongue. 
Although Goethe had been accused in Leipzig of 
speaking too colloquially, he found himself in a 
worse case in Strasburg as regards French. He 
thus became disgusted and made up his mind to 
give his thoughts to the world in German. Be- 
sides, the Prussian king was looming up in the 
north with a force that made him appear as a pole- 
star about which a large part of Europe would 
soon revolve. It is furthermore characteristic of 
Goethe's whole life that the thesis for which he 



52 GERMAN IDEALISM AND 

obtained his degree was written to prove the im- 
portance of a state church. He exhorts all good 
citizens to submit patiently and decorously to 
authority, especially in matters of religion. In 
striking contrast to this placidity of temperament 
is the aggressive individualism to which Schiller 
gave vent In the violent diatribes against social 
and political restrictions that we find scattered all 
through "The Robbers." The IFeltanschaiiung 
of Goethe and Schiller at about the same period 
of their lives could hardly have been wider apart. 
Schiller's views seem, however, to have changed 
less than those of Goethe. What he thought of a 
man who looks to another to decide fundamental 
questions for him is no doubt reflected in the 
words of the sorely perplexed Gordon when he 
exclaims in anguish of soul: 

"The free, the mighty man alone may listen 
To the fair impulse of his human nature. 
Ah ! we are but the poor tools of the law. 
Obedience is the sole virtue we dare aim at." 

Whereupon Butler consoles him with: 

"Nay, let it not afflict you that your power 
Is circumscribed. Much liberty, much error! 
The narrow path of duty is securest." 

This speech reflects the attitude of a man who 
abrogates his right to decide for himself what his 
duty is and Is about to assassinate the benefactor 



PRUSSIAN MILITARISM 53 

to whom he owes all he has and everything he is. 
He seeks to justify his perfidious act by heeding 
the vicious counsel of Butler so entirely at variance 
with Schiller's teaching in Tell that he alone is 
the strong man who depends upon himself. 



XIV 

Notwithstanding Goethe's good opinion of him- 
self, he never hesitated to acknowledge his indebt- 
edness to others. What he thought of originality 
is summed up in a judgment expressed to Zelter : 
"It is true that we bring capacities into life with 
us, but we owe our development to the thousand 
influences of a great world from which we assimi- 
late what we can. I owe much to the Greeks and 
to the French; my debt to Shakespeare, Sterne and 
Goldsmith is immeasurably great. Nevertheless, 
the sources of my culture are not therewith indi- 
cated — to name them all would be an endless task, 
and to no purpose. The main thing is that a 
man has a soul loving the Truth and accepting it 
wherever he finds it." In his correspondence he 
frequently expresses his admiration for Byron. In 
him he finds invention more pronounced than in 
any other man in the whole realm of literature. 
But he has no sympathy with his reckless, incon- 
siderate activity, and regarded as his fatal fault 
his polemical tendency. It was in Byron that he 

54 



PRUSSIAN MILITARISM 55 

found what he often calls the daimonic, that mys- 
terious creative force of which we can feel and 
see the effects, but which we cannot explain be- 
cause we cannot put ourselves in the same mental 
attitude. 

Goethe's high regard for English writers, but 
especially an admiration for Shakespeare that 
sometimes rises almost to a height of adoration, 
is a matter of a good deal of vexation to the Ger- 
man chauvinists of the ultra type. That the men 
who occupy the highest place in English literature 
seem to owe so little to their predecessors, while 
Goethe is so liberal in his acknowledgments of in- 
debtedness to them, is interpreted as a mere polite 
hyperbole. 



XV 



It is generally believed that the economic and 
political condition of France were worse than 
those of Germany. This is probably an error due 
to the fact that French affairs were better known, 
notwithstanding the large emigration to this coun- 
try that had been going on for more than a century 
before the beginning of the Revolution beyond 
the Rhine. Most of these immigrants came in 
English ships as virtual bondsmen and were in 
position to give accurate Information upon the 
conditions they had left behind. Unfortunately, 
they were not much given to writing and the rec- 
ords that have come down to us are comparatively 
few. We cannot otherwise account for the enthu- 
siasm with which many Germans, including Goethe 
and Schiller, greeted what they believe to be the 
dawn of a better day for their own country. 
Klopstock was sixty-five years old, hence no longer 
liable to be misled by the enthusiasm of youth, 
when he wrote: "Forgive me, O ye Franks, If 
ever I cautioned my country against following 

56 



PRUSSIAN MILITARISM 57 

your example ; for I am now urging them to imi- 
tate you." His poems and writings were well 
enough known in the French capital to win for 
their author an election to membership in the 
National Convention in 1792. The idea that 
Schiller and especially Goethe are the dominating 
figures in German education is a case where the 
wish engendered the belief. It would hardly have 
been suggested half a century ago. Historians of 
modern German education admit that it was Pes- 
talozzi who broke with the traditional methods of 
elementary Instruction when he endeavored to put 
in practice the innovations proclaimed and de- 
fended with so much eloquence by Rousseau. But 
Rousseau was a Frenchman and Pestalozzi a Swiss 
of Italian ancestry. The German chauvinists have 
therefore felt constrained to find some one among 
their countrymen who was sufficiently conspicuous 
to render it unnecessary to admit that they were 
under the necessity of borrowing anything from 
abroad. This procedure is quite as foolish as it 
is unhistorlcal everywhere. As we have seen, 
Goethe was under no illusions in this respect. 
Schiller was endowed with some of the character- 
istics of the reformer. He clearly saw the ends he 
aimed at, but his vision was not always wide or 
sane; it was not sufficiently penetrating to enable 



58 GERMAN IDEALISM AND 

him to see obstacles that were well nigh Insur- 
mountable. He did not understand human nature 
in all its variations, nor the diversity of human 
motives. Goethe, on the other hand, was always 
sane, or, to use an expressive but not elegant word, 
he was level-headed. This is not necessarily a 
compliment. Because he understood men better 
he was almost totally lacking in enthusiasm. He 
did not feel as Schiller seems to have felt, that 
one man can do much to shape the course of events. 
While the reader will always find in Goethe's 
works information and insight, he will rarely find 
Incitement to action. 



XVI 

Schiller is one of the most interesting and most 
lovable characters known to literature; one that 
is well worthy of the homage and imitation of pos- 
terity. Experience did not weaken his faith in the 
ultimate triumph of righteousness. To the senti- 
ment expressed in 

"Seid umschlungen, Milionen, 
Diesen Kuss der ganzen Welt,'' 
(I embrace you, O ye millions, 
I've a kiss for all the world), 
he remained faithful to the end of his days. To 
the last he was an enthusiast. In fact, an inex- 
plicable spirit of optimism seems to have pervaded 
the best minds of Europe during the latter half 
of the eighteenth century. In France we find Con- 
dorcet writing a treatise on the social and political 
perfectibility of the human race when he was in 
hiding to escape the guillotine. The same theme 
occupied the mind and pen of Madame de Stael. 
On the other side of the Rhine, Hegel was medi- 
tating upon and formulating a system of philos- 

59 



6o GERMAN IDEALISM AND 

ophy of which the fundamental postulate Is tele- 
ological. Goethe almost alone among the Ger- 
mans of his day seems to have quickly regained 
his mental equilibrium, although it had never been 
greatly disturbed by the political upheaval. He 
did not lose faith in manlcind, as his Faust testi- 
fies, but he did not give way to enthusiasm. Con- 
sidered by and large, he is the most instructive 
literary character in the history of the world, and 
especially of Germany. His writings are the mir- 
ror of a man's life for two generations. He is 
well worth study both for what he accomplished 
and for what he tried to do and failed. He was 
not as great a man as he believed himself to be 
or he would not have entered into fields where he 
could never make himself at home nor acclimate 
himself. No other writer, not even Byron and 
Tolstoy, has put so much of himself into his works 
as did Goethe, But it is only by a carefully 
selected elimination of obstreperous facts from his 
life that he can be justly claimed as the model 
citizen and the model man. 



XVII 

Kant is acclaimed by the Germans as the philos- 
opher who established a theory of morals that was 
destined to supersede all others. His categorical 
imperative is the pivot on which this doctrine re- 
volves. It is thus expressed by Schwegler: "The 
highest principle of morals will therefore be : Act 
so that the maxim of thy will can at the same time 
be valid as a principle of universal conduct; that 
is, so act that no contradiction shall arise in the 
attempt to conceive the maxim of thy activity as a 
law to be universally obeyed." Albeit, the Ger- 
man emperor does not seem to have a very high 
opinion of the philosopher of Koenigsberg. He 
made no mention of him in his speech in that city 
in 1 910, but laid great stress upon the fact that 
the Hohenzollern dynasty holds its power by 
divine right and not by the will of the people. The 
categorical imperative will stand the severest test. 
The Germans have, however, recently shown no 
disposition to apply it, at least, in international 
affairs. The Prussian chancellor admitted that 

61 



62 GERMAN IDEALISM AND 

Belgium had been unjustly Invaded, but justified 
the act on the plea of necessity. If we claim or 
even admit that any law may be broken when the 
necessity arises and take it upon ourselves to de- 
cide when necessity arises, it is absolutely worth- 
less. No wonder that the kaiser did not mention 
Kant in his speech above referred to, nor on any 
other occasion. There is no place for him in the 
ethical code of the HohenzoUerns. As a thinker 
Kant was eminently sane. But this is a compli- 
ment that would be wrongly applied to some of 
his contemporaries or to his successors. In their 
writings we find some pearls of wisdom, but they 
are often buried in heaps of rubbish. In his "Ideas 
of a Philosophy of Human History," Herder tells 
us that man was created upright so that he might 
direct his thoughts and wishes towards heaven. 
Apes have been denied the gift of speech because 
they would have abused it. How does he know, 
when they have never had an opportunity? Be- 
sides, it is a large assumption that man has never 
abused the gift of speech. There is a great deal 
of testimony and abundant evidence to the con- 
trary. "Speech would be dishonored in the mouth 
of the coarse, sensual, brutal monkey, who would 
undoubtedly ape human utterance with half the 
intelligence of man." "The purpose of human 



PRUSSIAN MILITARISM 63 

nature is humanity." What is humanity? "It is 
reason and reasonableness in all classes of human 
affairs." Certainly. What are reason and rea- 
sonableness? What is to my advantage is reason- 
able and what is to my detriment is unreasonable 
is the way these terms are usually interpreted. 
Herder is convinced that only a perverted mind 
can fail to see that the world has been constructed 
by design. "Nature has expended all her store 
of human types upon the earth in order that she 
might deceive mortals throughout their lives by 
providing for each his own dehght at his own time 
and at his own place." All this and much more 
of the same sort is interesting to the reader who 
allows himself to be borne along by turgid rhetoric 
and an ornate style. Except for the grammar such 
language closely resembles the sermons preached 
by men who do not know the alphabet. Herder 
was at one time in great vogue. He is still often 
referred to, although he does not appear to be 
much read. Nevertheless, two editions of his com- 
plete works were published in Germany between 
1869 and 1899. With Hegel the case is differ- 
ent. His philosophy is still popular in Germany 
and is a good deal read in England and the United 
States. It rests upon the single postulate that the 
"contribution of philosophy is solely the simple 



64 GERMAN IDEALISM AND 

thought of reason, reason as governing the world, 
the world process as a rational process. Reason 
is revealed in the world, and nothing else is there 
revealed except it, its honor and its glory — this is 
what has been proved ... by philosophy, and 
it may be here assumed as proved." If history 
is a rational process, who directs it? Reasonable 
men, of course, under the guidance of an omnis- 
cient power. Or, as Hegel puts it, "it is the im- 
pulse of the spirit to find the Absolute — that is 
to say, itself." How did it happen to get lost? 
How did it find out that it was lost? "The his- 
tory of the world is simply the development of 
the conception of freedom" and "objective free- 
dom involves the subjection of the accidental will 
which has only a formal existence." Applied to 
politics, it would seem to mean the subjection of 
the individual to the behests of some directing 
power in the state, as, for example, the prosecu- 
tion of persons, even of children, for lese majesty, 
if they happen to make some remark which the 
police consider derogatory to a divinely appointed 
autocrat. The subject is entirely free to say what 
he pleases, provided he says only what his superior 
approves. When reading these dicta one is re- 
minded of the man who said: "I am open to con- 
viction, but I would like to see the man who could 



PRUSSIAN MILITARISM 6s 

convince me." What freedom means in the Ger- 
man empire is strikingly shown by a quotation 
from Professor Gauss' "The German Emperor": 
"When, therefore, in 1878, by a curious coinci- 
dence, two attempts were made upon the life of 
Emperor William I, Bismarck immediately and 
easily seized this occasion to crush Social Democ- 
racy and increase the imperial power. He dis- 
solved the Reichstag, and in one month the law 
courts inflicted no less than five hundred years of 
imprisonment for lese majesty. Within eight 
months the authorities dissolved two hundred and 
twenty workingmen's unions, suppressed one hun- 
dred and twenty-seven periodicals and two hun- 
dred and seventy-eight other publications, and in- 
numerable bona-fide co-operative societies were 
compelled by the police to close their doors with- 
out trial and with no possibility of appeal. With 
equal dispatch numerous Social Democrats were 
expelled from Germany on a few days' notice." 
Hegel knows that Europe "represents the finality 
in the history of the world." One would suppose 
from this dictum that Europe as a whole was 
striving to attain the same end, to reach the same 
goal. If this be true, the different countries are 
traveling widely divergent paths. "America has 
shown, and still does show, a complete lack of 



66 GERMAN IDEALISM AND 

physical and intellectual power." Most persons 
are of the opinion that America is mainly peopled 
by immigrants from Europe. Did they lose all 
physical and intellectual control in crossing the 
Atlantic? Are the Turks who are now fighting 
on the side of the Teutons to be classed as Euro- 
peans? One more quotation from Hegel : "This 
principle (Christ) is the pivot upon which the 
world rotates. From it history starts and to it 
returns. God is subject, Creator of Heaven and 
Earth. Yet it is not in this power that revelation 
consists, but in the sonship by which He has dif- 
ferentiated His own personality. Spirit exists 
only in so far as it is conscious of its object, and 
of itself as an object. Thus that Other which 
God sets outside of Himself is Himself; and in 
his contemplation of Himself as Other love and 
spirit exist. We are aware of God as Spirit when 
we are aware of Him as three in one, and it is 
from this principle that the history of the world 
has developed." It may be well to remark in this 
connection that in Germany philosophy and the- 
ology are no longer regarded as separate depart- 
ments of human knowledge, but are considered as 
one and the same. Has theology swallowed up 
philosophy or vice versa? Or have the two mu- 



PRUSSIAN MILITARISM 67 

tually absorbed each other so that the mixture is 
neither, like the famiHar compound of oxygen and 
hydrogen? 



XVIII 

According to Hegel, the state is the mileu in 
which the citizen has to liv-e. Few men will dis- 
pute this dictum. He should submit himself to 
its authority with free insight. Hegel considered 
a limited monarchy the best form of government 
and was somewhat partial to the English system, 
as were most of the continental thinkers of the 
eighteenth century. He defended a hereditary 
monarchy which necessarily presupposes a no- 
bility. Albeit, the nobility is not so much to assist 
in legislation as to inform the monarch of the 
needs of his subjects. This was virtually the form 
of government under which he lived. His con- 
ception of the state corresponds in the main with 
that of the Greek thinkers, most of whom held 
that the individual exists for the state and not vice 
versa. In such a commonwealth it is the duty of 
the individual to obey the collective will as ex- 
pressed by law. Such a doctrine justifies the most 
tyrannical government that can be imagined; in 
fact, the term "tyranny" would entirely lose its 

68 



PRUSSIAN MILITARISM 69 

sinister meaning. Thomas Hobbes is the most 
pronounced champion of the German government, 
or of any government controlled from above. His 
Leviathan, since it was written in Latin, was prob- 
ably addressed to foreign rather than to English 
readers. Its influence seems to have been less in 
his country than in France. The primitive state 
of man being one of perpetual war, as he argues, 
the citizen agrees to submit himself to the author- 
ity of an individual or to individuals strong 
enough to suppress anarchy. If he goes to war 
by authority of the supreme power, it is no longer 
the conflict of wild tribes, but a war waged by the 
state. This compact having once been voluntarily 
entered into cannot be annulled by the subjects, 
not even by a majority. It is the duty of the sov- 
ereign to suppress all attempts at rebellion and 
to maintain his paramountcy by force, if need be. 
This condition, however, accrues to the benefit of 
the citizen because it enables him to live in peace. 
The state as portrayed by Hobbes is more nearly 
that of Germany and Russia than any other of 
recent times. Its ubiquitous police force is always 
at hand to suppress any manifestation of dissatis- 
faction with the existing order. 

As an uncompromising teleologist Hegel main- 
tained with Pope that "whatever is, is right." Since 



70 GERMAN IDEALISM AND 

the absolute Reason manifests itself in the state, 
or, rather, as the state is the manifestation of the 
absolue Reason upon earth, the subject has no 
cause for serious dissatisfaction, much less an ex- 
cuse for trying to subvert it. If the state is God 
upon earth, it can only be produced by Reason. 
The doctrine at present openly or covertly pro- 
claimed by many Germans is that as there is no 
God, the state is a logical deduction from the He- 
gelian postulate. It becomes a divine institution, 
so far as anything upon earth can be called divine, 
and every attempt to subvert it is sacrilege. As 
freedom can only be progressively realized in the 
state, the authorities have a sort of divine right to 
define how far that freedom may extend, and if ._ 
passes beyond bounds to check it. It follows, 
therefore, that if a strong man appears who com- 
pletely dominates the government, who becomes 
in a sense the state, he should be obeyed without 
question. This interpretation of freedom differs 
toto coelo from that held by almost all the citi- 
zenry of the world. We can understand why so 
many Germans of the present day declare: "We 
are as free as any people in the world," or "We 
enjoy as much freedom as the people of the 
United States." Such a declaration may be gain- 
said, but it cannot be refuted, because agreement 



PRUSSIAN MILITARISM 71 

upon the fundamental premises Is out of the ques- 
tion. It may, however, be repeated that such a 
conception of freedom Is confined almost entirely 
to Germany and Russia. It Is probable that In 
no country of modern Europe, unless It be Russia, 
where thinkers have been so subservient to the 
government as In Germany. A few writers like 
Heine and Herwegh, who refused to be silenced, 
betook themselves to France and continued to hurl 
their Parthian arrows at their countrymen. Some 
of the younger restless spirits, like Schurz, Hecker, 
Sigel and others, migrated to the United States. 
Kant, although Independent as a philosopher, 
readily submitted to the royal decree Issued under 
William II forbidding him to deliver public lec- 
tures either on theological or philosophical sub- 
jects. In other words, he preferred to disregard 
his conscience rather than his sovereign. A com- 
mand of his sovereign was looked upon as If it 
were an order from heaven. In 1723 C. F. Wolff 
was deprived of his professorship in Halle by 
order of William I and commanded to quit that 
city within twenty-four hours and Prussian terri- 
tory within two days, under the threat of severe 
penalties. He was afterward appointed to a posi- 
tion in Marburg and later recalled to Halle by 
Frederic II. In 1 820 Arndt was deposed from his 



72 GERMAN IDEALISM AND 

position in Bonn for his radical political opinions. 
Yet he was a thorough-going chauvinist and ab- 
horred and belittled everything French. For his 
ultra-Teutonism and his deification of everything 
German he subsequently became the idol of his 
countrymen and, even to some extent, of German 
Austria. In 1837 seven professors were dismissed 
from the University of Goettingen by the Elector 
Ernest Augustus for protesting against the abro- 
gation of the constitution. But their colleagues re- 
mained silent. The Goettinger Dichterbund was 
composed chiefly of young men who were enthus- 
iastic and even fanatical enemies of tyranny. Yet 
their activities lasted hardly half a dozen years 
and ended in nothing. They were rhetoricians in 
politics, a form in which political activities usually 
found vent in Germany. It is hardly putting the 
case too strong to say that every German writer of 
note who exhibited the slightest liberal tendency, 
between the overthrow of Napoleon and the mid- 
dle of the nineteenth century, found himself in- 
volved with one or another or with several of the 
German governments. The repressive activities 
of Metternich extended even to Switzerland and 
Holland. Any one who is interested in these mat- 
ters will find confirmation of the above allegations 
by a glance into the biographies of Gutzkow, Jahn, 



PRUSSIAN MILITARISM 73 

Fritz Reuter — who was even condemned to death 
— Laube, Boerne, Uhland, the Froebels, and par- 
ticularly of Robert Blum. Blum's fate is particu- 
larly noteworthy because of the popular indigna- 
tion aroused by his execution, which found tangi- 
ble expression in a public subscription for his 
widow and children that netted the sum of thirty 
thousand dollars. Freiligrath, although a victim 
of political persecution, made a distinction between 
the German governments and the German people. 
He loved the latter and spent the last years of his 
life near Stuttgart. But even the one-time all- 
powerful Metternich could not permanently stem 
the rising tide of liberalism and felt constrained to 
take refuge for a time in England. 



XIX 

Professor Dewey says, in his "German Philos- 
opliy and Politics" : "Higher schools and universi- 
ties in Germany are really, not just nominally, 
under control of the state and part of the state life. 
In spite of freedom af academic instruction, when 
once a teacher is installed in office, the political 
authorities have always taken a hand, at critical 
junctures, in determining the selection of teachers 
in subjects that had a direct bearing on political 
policies. Moreover, one of the chief functions oi 
the universities is the preparation of future state 
officials. Legislative activity is distinctly subordi- 
nate to that of administration conducted by a 
trained civil service, or, if you please, bureaucracy. 
Membership in this bureaucracy is dependent upon 
university training. Philosophy, both directly and 
indirectly, plays an unusually large role in the 
training. The faculty of law does not chiefly aim 
at the preparation of practicing lawyers. Philoso- 
phies of jurisprudence are an essential part of law 
teachmg; and every one of the classic philosophers 

74 



PRUSSIAN MILITARISM 75 

took a hand in writing a philosophy of law and of 
the state. Theology and philosophy are no longer 
regarded as separate departments of knowledge, 
but merely phases of the same. It is not, there- 
fore, surprising that we find professors, and even 
pastors in active service, avowing themselves as 
Nietzscheans or Hegedelalians or something else 
which has about as much connection with theology, 
especially pastoral, as has Confucianism, and less 
morality." A man may go about the country de- 
livering lectures to prove that there never was 
such a person as Christ, and suffer no harm nor be 
molested. He may write a book for the purpose 
of proving that all the Hebrew patriarchs were 
merely figments of the Imaginations of later 
writers, and lose nothing financially or profession- 
ally. Roman Catholic theologians may publish 
volume after volume accusing Luther of having 
broken every article of the moral law, except per- 
haps that one which forbids murder, and they will 
be allowed to have their say. But let some one 
question the divine right of kings, especially of the 
House of Hohenzollern, and he will forthwith be 
informed that he is venturing on forbidden 
ground, if he fares no worse. I am not aware that 
anybody has tried to discover by what process the 
present German emperor found out his divine 



76 GERMAN IDEALISM AND 

descent. Nor have I been able to discover that 
all his ancestors made this claim. Frederic II, 
with his unconcealed contempt for divine things, 
was hardly so inconsistent as to make it. Albeit, 
our William does not often mention him in his pub- 
lic addresses. Many of his subjects, probably the 
great majority, do not believe it. But they encour- 
age the delusion, or obsession, or whatever one 
chooses to call that peculiar cast of mind, or wink 
at it for their own ends. Treitschke seems to have 
been in possession of the secret. But he has not 
revealed to his readers the sources of his informa- 
tion. His gospel has been summed up in the fol- 
lowing words: "The Hohenzollerns are the only 
monarchs possessing divine right. Germans are 
the chosen people in whose hands might is always 
right. They are empowered by right of might to 
say what they please of other peoples and to treat 
them as they (the Germans) please." It must be 
particularly galling to the House of Wittelsbach 
and of Hapsburg, to mention no other reigning 
family, to find themselves excluded from the divine 
favor by a Hohenzollern, since both are equally 
old, if not older, and both of south German origin. 
The doctrine of the divine right of kings has per- 
dured into the twentieth century only in this one 
family; at least no other so openly and unblush- 



PRUSSIAN MILITARISM 77 

ingly proclaims it. The British people made an 
end of it in 1688. Among the French it survived 
a century longer. In other European countries it 
never gained a foothold. If William, merely by 
virtue of his being a Teuton, is the chosen instru- 
ment of Providence, where do the south German 
kings come in, since they belong to the same race ? 
If this one family alone has been so highly fa- 
vored, the divine spirit chose some decidedly un- 
savory channels through which to flow during the 
last four or five centuries. 



XX 



That the German thinkers were most optimistic 
when the economic condition of their country was 
most deplorable is a remarkable intellectual phe- 
nomenon, Leibniz, whose parents must have had 
a vivid recollection of the distress caused by the 
Thirty Years' War, wrote a theodicy to prove that 
this world is the best possible of all worlds. How- 
ever, as the treatise was written in French it was 
perhaps intended for readers beyond the Rhine, 
rather than in his own country. Still we have no 
reason to believe that the treatise does not repre- 
sent his real sentiments. Hegel, too, was appar- 
ently well satisfied with the conditions amid which 
he lived. It has been remarked that Hegel, the 
"serene and subtle Swabian," did not formulate his 
philosophy of history until after Leipzig and 
Waterloo, and that he assimilated it with the inter- 
ests of the Prussian state. It needs to be said, 
however, that Hegel, like most of his countrymen, 
had a profound admiration for the genius of Na- 
poleon and a profound contempt for his German 

78 



PRUSSIAN MILITARISM 79 

opponents. In his correspondence he maintains 
the right of his countrymen to manage their own 
affairs, but it is doubtful that he anticipated or 
would have sanctioned such proceedings as were 
inaugurated by the war against Schleswig-Hol- 
stein. In the philosophy of Prussian statecraft the 
only crime a state can commit is to be weak, be- 
cause to be weak is to be contemptible. Having 
abolished the God of Christianity, the spiritual 
idea is incarnate in the state, and the idea of the 
state is incarnate in the reigning dynasty. The 
Idea operates through force, violence and blood- 
shed. Force is holy when it is on the side of Ger- 
many, and sacrilege when it is directed against 
her. Force directed by Prussia is the only ideal- 
ism, the only intelligence. The disastrous ending 
of the career of the first Napoleon convinced the 
French people that their welfare depended hence- 
forth upon the cultivation of the arts of peace. 
The third Napoleon obtained the supreme power 
by proclaiming himself the champion of peace. 
But he was obsessed by the ambition to imitate the 
deeds of his great ancestor, and succeeded in draw- 
ing France into two or three European wars, to 
say nothing of the miserable fiasco in Mexico. 
The violent and persistent opposition in the 
French Chamber to the proposed extension of the 



8o GERMAN IDEALISM AND 

military apprenticeship by a year is conclusive evi- 
dence of the pacific spirit of the French people. 
As the event proved, the extension was the salva- 
tion of France. Few people believed that the pa- 
cific professions of the German emperor were a 
mask behind which was hidden the mephistophe- 
lean grin of satisfaction of a man who has suc- 
ceeding in making others believe that words, 
whether spoken or written, are to be accepted in 
their literal meaning. 

Schopenhauer, the chief apostle of pessimism, 
addressed an unsympathetic audience until about 
the middle of the nineteenth century, when Ger- 
many began to count for something in the political 
and economic world. Then he suddenly sprang 
into notice. Hartmann, who was in a sense his 
disciple, was received with marked attention 
almost from his first appearance before the pub- 
lic — that is, about the middle of the sixties. At 
that period one would have expected that the older 
philosophy, with its hopefulness and its self-satis- 
faction, to be particularly acceptable to a German 
clientele. Have we here an unconscious recru- 
descence of the belief held by the ancient Greeks, 
and which Herodotus has exemplified in the story 
of the ring of Polycrates, that great prosperity is 
the harbinger of some great disaster? 



XXI 

It is not possible to formulate a philosophy of 
history that will stand the test of careful scrutiny 
because the course of human events is not rational. 
Tennyson, after struggling with many doubts and 
misgivings, persuaded himself that there "is one 
far off divine event to which the whole creation 
moves." But he does not tell us what that divine 
event is. There is no far off goal toward which a 
nation, much less the whole creation, moves. Men 
direct their energies toward the attainment of 
some end that seems to them within their reach. 
This end is either the accumulation of wealth or 
the concentration of power in their own hands, or 
the gaining of reputation in some department of 
human activity. This end is rarely farther off 
than the second generation, usually no farther 
than the first. The vast majority of mankind do 
not look beyond supplying the needs of the pass- 
ing day. Furthermore, what must be regarded as 
the regular course of human affairs is often inter- 
rupted or turned into new channels by the inter- 

81 



82 GERMAN IDEALISM AND 

ference of some superman, whose appearance can 
not be foretold or foreseen. If Alexander the 
Great had reached the age of threescore years and 
ten, or even that of his father, the history of the 
ancient world would probably have been far differ- 
ent. If Oliver Cromwell had lived a score of 
years longer there would have been no need of an 
English revolution half a century later. The Span- 
ish Armada was defeater by storms, not by sea- 
men. If Gustavus Adolphus had survived a few 
years longer Germany would have become wholly, 
instead of partly, Protestant. Frederic the Great 
was saved from ruin by the sudden death of the 
empress of Russia. For centuries the Hohenzol- 
lerns and the Hapsburgs contended for the para- 
mountcy in German affairs, and the former finally 
won. Will the prize remain in their hands? Na- 
tions that are democratically governed rarely have 
a far-reaching policy; perhaps never. Nowhere in 
the world in this nineteenth century is the war god 
made an object of worship except at the Prussian 
court. Because that state had the good or ill 
fortune to increase its prestige and its territory by 
war, its leading spirits assume that the same end 
can be gained in no other way. The logical fallacy 
is as clear as anything can be that if such a course 
is right for one nation it must be right for every 



PRUSSIAN MILITARISM 83 

other. The war demon will therefore be held in 
leash until his master sees a favorable opportunity 
to let him spring upon his unsuspecting victim. 
This encouragement of the fighting spirit, this 
glorification of carnage, is not merely a recurrence 
to the primitive stage of mankind; it is going back 
to the beast of prey that knows no right or justice, 
but is governed solely by the law of the stronger. 
The rulers of the ancient world who saw an oppor- 
tunity to enlarge their domains never lacked for an 
excuse or justification to make the attempt. They 
were nothing more than a species of beasts of 
prey. We are now witnesses of a condition of 
affairs where a knowledge of those forces of 
nature most potent for destruction are exploited 
to the uttermost for the gratification of the basest 
passions that find lodgment in the human breast. 
It makes one sad when he reflects that the spirit 
that often animated the pre-Christian world, and 
which still at times breaks out among barbarous or 
semi-barbarous peoples, has projected itself into 
the twentieth century and into the conduct of a 
government which assumes to be the supreme type 
of excellence. No wonder the world stands aghast 
and asks, "What will the end be?" "Will this 
terrible and unexampled conflict end in such a way 
as to demonstrate that right is might, or will it 



84 GERMAN IDEALISM AND 

prove the truth of the Napoleonic dictum that 
providence is always on the side that has the heav- 
iest cannon?" "Will the vindication of interna- 
tional justice be so complete that it will never have 
to be done over?" 



XXII 

The rapid rise of Prussia to the hegemony of 
Germany, and to some extent of Europe, is not, as 
is sometimes asserted, a unique phenomenon in the 
history of the world. When the Athenians had 
expelled the Persians from their territory it was a 
waste. Her citizens had to rebuild from the 
ground up. Albeit, in less than fifty years they 
had placed their country at the head of Grecian 
affairs and had created a literature that has not yet 
ceased to be the admiration of the world. Then 
overestimating her resources and underestimating 
those of her enemies, Athens engaged in the mad 
Sicilian expedition. Its failure was the beginning 
of the end. The final disaster was the catastrophe 
at The Goats River, and free Greece was soon no 
more. After Rome emerged victorious from the 
Punic wars her expansion moved forward with 
gigantic strides. Her success was partly due to a 
more secure base from which to operate, partly to 
her superior political organization, partly to the 
valor of her citizen soldiers. On the other hand, 

85 



86 GERMAN IDEALISM AND 

the Carthaginian possessions were somewhat 
widely scattered; her armies were largely com- 
posed of mercenaries, and political intrigues at the 
capital city withheld the support from Hannibal 
which was indispensable to his success. In our own 
day the rise and expansion of Japan is a wonder- 
ful political phenomenon. Germany was built up 
on her own foundations and institutions. Japan, 
on the other hand, imported a foreign civilization 
and made it her own. An Asiatic people adopted 
a European culture and to a large extent discarded 
her age-old traditions. The Japanese likewise in- 
corporated territory that is virtually contiguous 
and is still striving to make conquests, both near 
and remote. Neither is the invasion of Belgium, 
its ruthless devastation, and the massacre of the 
Armenians without precedent. He who thinks so 
will profit by a glance into the careers of Jenghis 
Khan and Tamerlane. The chief difference be- 
tween those Asiatic conquerors and their twen- 
tieth century imitators is that they broke no 
treaties and did not proclaim themselves to be the 
protagonists of Kultur. 



XXIII 

Of the Nobel prizes for excellence in literature 
awarded between 1901 and 19 13 only two were 
allotted to Germans, to Heyse and Hauptmann. It 
is true the names of Mommsen and Eucken are 
also on the favored list; but the fame of the for- 
mer rests upon his work in history and of the 
latter on his contributions to philosophy. And be 
it noted, that although Eucken's philosophy is 
idealistic and cosmopolitan he joined in the outcry 
against the alleged defamation of his fellow-coun- 
trymen by the aUIes. As he had not been within a 
hundred miles of the scenes of the atrocities, his 
knowledge was purely subjective. Psychological 
certainty before the event that it would not hap- 
pen and metaphysical cocksureness after the event 
that it could not have happened has been much in 
evidence among the Germans during the present 
war. In the last two years two more prizes in 
literature went to Scandinavians — that is, to Danes 
— a fact that puts the Germans still further in the 
background, especially when we consider the small 

87 



88 GERMAN IDEALISM AND 

population of the northern countries. It is sig- 
nficant that no peace prize went to a German. 
When any government proposed or even sug- 
gested the appointment of an international tribu- 
nal for the peaceful adjustment of international 
differences the idea was always treated by Berlin 
either as visionary, or as dictated by fear, or as a 
hypocritical scheme for taking advantage of a 
country that was too weak to defend itself, or too 
credulous to know its business. If Germany is 
still the land of ideals and idealists it should have 
taken more peace prizes than all the other coun- 
tries of Europe combined. Doubtless, if the kaiser 
should succeed in defeating the armies of the allies 
and exterminating all who oppose his inspired 
leadership there will be peace and good will upon 
earth, provided nobody has any will except the 
will prescribed by his Teutonic Highness. This is 
a large contract for one man. 

The German social and political organization 
is the most scientifically constructed machine of its 
kind in the world. At the head is the nobility and 
the military caste, which constitutes a sort of inter- 
locking diabolarchy. Next comes the official class, 
which is intelligent and influential because it is held 
in awe. In a certain sense it is open to everybody; 
but the conditions are onerous, and those who 



PRUSSIAN MILITARISM 89 

have been successful in gaining admission are 
proud of their achievement. Thus it comes about 
that the government Is something above and apart 
from the ordinary citizenry and looked up to with 
a feehng akin to awe. This class is not well paid, 
but its position is secure. The clergy, as well as 
the whole teaching force, are a part of it and are 
usually careful not to compromise their dignity or 
their position. When the government calls upon 
the citizens to take up arms they obey whether 
they have any interest in the conflict or not. It Is 
not In the Teutonic nature to rebel against author- 
ity. When the peasants took up arms against 
their oppressors, Luther launched against them 
one of his fiercest diatribes. The Thirty Years' 
War was not essentially a conflict of creeds, as 
Catholics sometimes fought against Catholics and 
Protestants against Protestants. It was continued 
until the rulers were tired of It, or their resources 
completely exhausted, although nothing was really 
decided. The new German empire was not 
founded by the people, but by a coterie of military 
statesmen at Versailles. Its constitution, like that 
of the various minor states, does not embody a set 
of principles for which the voters demanded recog- 
nition, but a concession made by the sovereigns. 
"When reproached by liberals for maintaining 



90 GERMAN IDEALISM AND 

a full-blown feudalism in the twentieth century, the 
Germans or German-Americans will always reply 
that republics and parliaments might be all very 
well for other nations, but that without a hierarch- 
ical organization of the government the Father- 
land would never have achieved its splendid edu- 
cational system, its scientifically fostered industry, 
its admirable municipal organization, its intensiv^e 
cultivation and conservation of the resources of the 
country and its well diffused prosperity. But if 
the results are to be ascribed to the wise rule of 
the Hohenzollerns, or to the efficiency of the Prus- 
sian bureaucracy, it is amazing that results so simi- 
lar should be attained under very different polit- 
ical systems. The German peasant may farm more 
intelligently than the British agricultural laborer, 
but he is in no way superior to the Dane. Prussian 
cities are clean, but so are the Dutch. The indus- 
tries of Germany are conducted with less waste, 
perhaps, than ours, but co-operation is as familiar 
to the artisan and enterpriser of Flanders as it is 
east of the Rhine. Education is more nearly uni- 
versal than it is in France, but not more so than in 
Norway. Germans are orderly, law-abiding, and 
governed by officials who know their business. 
Very true, but so are the Swiss. There is really 
nothing peculiar about Kiiltur except the idolatry 



PRUSSIAN MILITARISM 91 

of the Prussian state borrowed from Treitschke 
the Czech, and a dash of mihtarism derived from 
Nietzschke the Pole." 



ADDENDA 

After the completion of my manuscript my at- 
tention was called to the following passages in 
the writings of Goethe. Some of them were new 
to me, others I had forgotten. Although they are 
merely corrobrative of what has already been 
said, they seemed worthy of being added to what 
precedes. 

In a conversation with Eckermann on the 3d of 
May, 1827, Goethe, after lauding Burns and 
Beranger and contrasting the Scotch with his own 
countrymen, continued: "We Germans are of 
yesterday. We have, to be sure, been cultivating 
ourselves energetically for a century; but a few 
more centuries must still elapse before so much 
mind and elevated culture will become universal 
among our people that they will appreciate beauty 
like the Greeks, that they will be inspired by a 
beautiful song, and that It will be said of them, 'it 
is a long time since they were barbarians.' " 

On the 27th of July, in the same year, he said: 
"We are weakest In the esthetic department and 
may wait long before we meet such as man as Car- 
lyle. It Is a pleasure to see that Intercourse Is now 
so close between French, English and Germans 

92 



PRUSSIAN MILITARISM 93 

that we shall be able to correct one another's 
errors." On May 30th, 1831, the conversation 
was upon the daimonic, when Goethe said: "It 
throws itself willingly into figures of importance 
and prefers somewhat dark times. In a clear 
Prussian city like Berlin, for instance, it would 
scarcely find occasion to manifest itself." "The 
Germans do not easily receive anything out of the 
common course and what is of a higher nature 
often passes them without their being aware of 
it." On March 12th, 1828, he pays his respects 
to the police, among other unfavorable judgments, 
thus: "Not a boy may crack a whip, or sing, or 
shout — the police is immediately at hand to for- 
bid it." Just before, he had contrasted the free- 
dom of the English with the servility of the Ger- 
mans, and then added: "Such as they are they 
are thoroughly complete men." Goethe frequently 
accuses his countrymen of a certain narrowness or 
provincialism. He seems to have had this thought 
in mind when he makes Mephistophiles say, near 
the beginning of the second part of Faust: 
"By that I know the learned lord you are. 

What you don't touch is lying leagues afar; 

What you don't grasp is wholly lost to you ; 

What you don't reckon can't be true ; 

What you don't weigh, it has no weight, alas, 

What you don't coin, you're sure it will not 
pass." 



94 GERMAN IDEALISM AND 

December 4th, 1825: "I hardly know any one 
who, at the same time, is so sensitive as Zelter. 
And in addition we must not forget that he has 
lived more than half a century in Berlin. Now as 
I am beginning to notice more and more the race 
which lives there is so bold that one cannot accom- 
plish much with delicate manners, but, on the con- 
trary, must show one's teeth occasionally and be 
a bit rude to keep one's head above water." 

(The German word translated "bold" above is 
verwegen. It often means "rash" or "venture- 
some." Goethe probably used it in the sense of 
"unconventional." Zelter is said to have been much 
given to disregarding the usages of polite society, 
or at least to have paid little attention to them.) 

When one of the soldiers In Egmont proposes 
a toast to war, an indignant Flemish burgher cries 
out: "War! War! Do you realize what you are 
shouting. It is easy for you to bellow the word. 
But I wish I could tell you how sick it makes the 
rest of us. Drums beating the whole year round! 
To hear of nothing but columns advancing here 
and there, coming up over a hill, making a stand 
by a mill, — how many were slaughtered on this 
place, how many on another; how one side scored 
a success and then the other is defeated; — and 
with it all a fellow doesn't know who won and 
who lost anything; — how a town was taken, citi- 
zens murdered, — and what happened to the 



PRUSSIAN MILITARISM 95 

wretched women and children. Nothing but fear 
and trembling. Every minute you think: Here 
they come; now it is our turn." This imaginary 
burgher of the sixteenth century proves to have 
been a true prophet of what was to befall some 
of his countrymen and countrywomen in the early 
years of the twentieth. 
In Iphigeneia we read: 
"A king who orders an unholy act 
Finds slaves enough who will, for gain or 

favor, 
Take on themselves half of the deed's oppro- 
brium; 
But spotless is his presence as before." 
As we read the numerous unfavorable judg- 
ments passed by Goethe on his countrymen when 
they were under discussion, we are justified in 
assuming that he often had them in mind when 
they are not specifically mentioned. 



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